Harvard Sports Analysis Collective

Regarding: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/16/sports/ncaabasketball/16score.html?_r=1&ref=sports

  ————— 
If the Berger-Pope study (NY Times, March 15) becomes widely accepted, we eventually will see accounts like this.

                             WILEY’S BRILLIANT PLOY

Battling against University’s fabulous five for the National Championship, State trailed by a single point as halftime approached.  We know from Berger and Pope’s work that wins stem more often from one point halftime deficits than from ties or from one point leads.

As the halftime buzzer sounded, University’s Coach U. R. Cagey aimed numerous obscenities at the referees.  Cagey knew a technical foul and a State free throw would deny State its hard-earned motivational halftime edge.  But State’s coach I. M. Wiley intervened ingeniously by choosing Joe Clank, their worst shooter, to take the foul shot.  Clank’s ensuing miss preserved State’s fragile halftime advantage.  [Read more →]

I don’t follow college basketball, but that hardly matters this time of year. If you’re like me, you need a good way to figure out how to make a bracket without knowing anything about the teams playing. By following a statistical framework and mixing in your own judgment about upsets (or just random guessing), you’ll have a much better chance of filling in a pretty good bracket. [Read more →]

Released from the NFC’s glamorous Cowboys and snatched up in a hurry by the AFC’s equally glamorous Bills, Terrell Owens found himself a fresh start at the age of 35. But given last year’s production, Football Outsiders’ Bill Barnwell asks, Is T.O. Done?

Surrounded by nachos, mozzarella sticks, and fierce competition, HSAC dominated sports trivia night at the Queen’s Head Pub this Thursday. HSAC was pleased to host Baseball at Tufts (BAT) for this fun evening on campus. From our small booth in the pub, HSAC achieved a near-perfect score on the night’s questions, earning a sound victory over the seven other competing teams. HSAC Public Relations Director Elizabeth Fryman skillfully organized the night’s festivities and arranged a lineup of questions that tested participants’ knowledge of baseball, football, basketball, and Olympic trivia.

In the early rounds, HSAC’s freshman sensation, David Roher, took charge of the squad and guided the group through the baseball and basketball questions. With help from Jamie Rees, Rick Goldstein, and Neil, HSAC sprinted out to an early lead. After the second round of trivia, HSAC and a competing team, “Surge Protector,” went to a triple tiebreaker in order to determine the winner of the night’s bonus question. After a grueling set of questions administered Price Is Right-style, HSAC won the bonus, and along with it, a complimentary French bread pizza. Winning never tasted so good…or so much like Stouffers.

Finally, HSAC swept the final trivia round, courageously wagering the maximum number of points on a bonus question to ensure a resounding victory. Our friends from Tufts finished respectably in third place, just behind Surge Protector. Thanks to the many HSAC members who came to support the competitors. It was a night that will live on in HSAC lore for years to come!

HSAC was mentioned in an article about a Harvard grad who founded a fantasy baseball company.  I hope you find it interesting.  http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=526940

Each year, the NFL decision makers gather in Indianapolis to watch players cavort about in spandex.  Even though all the players participating have appeared in dozens of college games and hundreds of plays, scouts (and fans) insist on hard “data” to determine their value.  The most widely reported test during the combine is the 40 yard dash.  Players run 40 yards (rather than 30 or 50) because Paul Brown wanted to see how they would perform on punt coverage; 40 yards was the approximate distance of a punt. [Read more →]

Originally appeared in the Harvard Independent

I should love Bobby Abreu.

At least I should according to Ed Wade, the GM of the Houston Astros. Wade told the New York Times that the former all-star is “a sabermetrician’s dream, from the standpoint of what he produces statistically.” Fortunately, Wade is not my most trusted source for baseball analysis. The only dreams real sabermetricians have about the right fielder these days are nightmares about his horrifying outfield defense. [Read more →]

Rondo’s Triple 14.

Rajon Rondo’s triple double Wed night in Boston’s comeback win
over Dallas involved 19 points, 15 rebounds, and 14 assists.  His
“max-min” of 14 (14 maximizes the minimum category) means he
actually actually had a “triple 14″. [Read more →]

In Super Bowl XXXVI, New England kicker Adam Vinatieri’s 48-yard field goal attempt sailed through the uprights, clinching a world championship for the Patriots. Nearly eleven years before Vinatieri’s kick, Scott Norwood’s 47-yard field goal attempt in Super Bowl XXV famously missed “wide right” and earned the Buffalo Bills their first of four straight Super Bowl losses. One major difference between these two events in football history: Vinatieri kicked inside the Louisiana Superdome, while Norwood lined up outside in Tampa. [Read more →]

In the 2008 NFL season, several teams had success with multi-back rushing systems. The Giants used the combination of Earth (Brandon Jacobs), Wind (Derrick Ward), and Fire (Ahmad Bradshaw). The Panthers used DeAngelo Williams and Jonathan Stewart. The Titans used Smash (LenDale White) and Dash (Chris Johnson). All three of these teams ranked in the top seven in yards per carry and each earned a first-round bye in the playoffs. For these squads, and others, splitting carries may have been a factor in their rushing achievements.

Some NFL analysts claim that having a system that uses multiple backs increases the explosiveness of a running game. I wanted to see if the stats backed this up. [Read more →]